They really don't.
PL L FA Premier League
Chelsea 4:0 Manchester United
Post-match discussion
Sun, 23 October 2016
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Spot on. I don't know how anyone can seriously look at both teams and say Chelsea players are comfortably better.
Similar in nature to Liverpool match where we were able to play according to plan, but here everything went awry after the first goal. The main reason was our defence was unbelievably shaky yesterday. Everytime Chelsea developed a counter-attack, the defence panicked. Smalling had a 'Lingard against City' kind of match, so did Blind. Our defence crumbled, and our main striker was a passenger.
We can come back from here, of course, but the team mindset has to change.
We can come back from here, of course, but the team mindset has to change.
Agreed. The problem isn't with the lack of individual quality.
3rd game in a span of a week, away and a freak goal to start the game allowed Chelsea - 7 days fresh - to capitalize and dominate the game. Only issue I have with this is I expected the players to crack down and not bottle it.
It's okay, 6 points off the top. As long as the lads have the balls to mentally come back from this then we'll be fine, we have the quality. Besides, this same Chelsea side got trashed 3-0 by arsenal a couple weeks ago
Shit happens.
It's okay, 6 points off the top. As long as the lads have the balls to mentally come back from this then we'll be fine, we have the quality. Besides, this same Chelsea side got trashed 3-0 by arsenal a couple weeks ago
Shit happens.It was strange considering how solid we were at Anfield - very uncharacteristically poor from Smalling and Blind
I thought Rooney was shite.....oh, er.....
Only Bailly & Pogba would get into our team actually.
First three probably would. Herrera, Martial and Valencia (are you even serious?) wouldn't.
If you're playing 5 a side.
Nonsense. When in form, all of Shaw, Bailly, Pogba, Herrera, Martial and Zlatan are getting into your team. De Gea too.
Teams are about equal in terms of strength. Both have a few very good players, a few decent players, a few average players who are just trying to do their job the best they can. Neither is really a top side currently but I'm not buying for a second that Matic, Moses, Oscar or Cahill would easily walk into United team easily while Pogba would not get a look for Chelsea because he had a bad month of football.
Seriously, the notion that Pogba goes to Chelsea and doesn't play is absolutely mental and is based on literally 1 month of football.
Herrera is not a worse players than Matic, really. Their midfield is pretty poor. He's probably better than Fabregas too.
Martial is better than Victor Moses, comfortably. In form he'd get there but since he has not been in form for the last 1.5 months, we must write him off as shit.
Valencia has been one of the best full backs in the league for the last year and a half. Hell, Ivanovic used to play right back not long ago for them and he's crap.
Well I have calmed down and bit and actually agree with Gary Nev (as I often do) that Stamford Bridge has been a bogey ground for us (stretching back to the Sixties I don't think I've ever seen us win there live - ie with me in the crowd) and that the Stoke result is one to be more angry about. That said there wasn't a decent performance from any one in red - my scores for player run from one to four. No one managed five or above. I am willing to let it go as a one-off if Jose learns that Fellaini and Pogba doesn't work. Time to give Carrick a chance, for goodness sake. Not sure he will but he will but let's see. Also I want to see him get far angrier on the touchline. Again I think Nev is right: a fair number of those players on show on Sunday are on borrowed time. I can see a lot of people coming in next summer and even more going out
Shaw hasn't had a top season in years yet he'd walk into our team? Nonsense. [Irrelevant point] is a very good player & although he lacks Shaw's athleticism he's far ahead of him technically & defensively. He was literally one of the best left backs in Serie A.
De Gea/Courtois would literally be a sideways step imo. They're both in the same tier. DDG wouldn't make a significant difference to our team. Zlatan on the other hand looks finished & has been a net negative over the past 5/6 games. The guy is completely static off the ball, I'd rather have Costa who has his fair share of frustrating moments but causes havoc with his finishing & movmenet.
Herrera & Martial. feck sakes lad.
Again the only players that would make our team are Pogba as a Matic replacement & Bailly for Cahill. Maybe De Gea for Courtois if you want to be pedantic. That's about it.
I am a United supporter since the 60s and I don't agree that Stamford Bridge is a bogey ground for us.I haven't look up any stats thats just my feeling on it.If anything we have a good record there while they have a good or at least better than most record at OT.
When you play away from home its vital not to concede early, vital.Giving them a goal inside a minute was just disastrously bad.
When you play away from home its vital not to concede early, vital.Giving them a goal inside a minute was just disastrously bad.
But it does happen, and as a team you have to deal with it and I really don't think we did at all - heads went down. You can't just say,' oh...we've lost a goal in the first 30 seconds...well that's that then'. You have to pick yourself up, not panic and keep your defensive unit in shape and focus. That I don't believe we did.
Likewise the only Chelsea players who are making our team are Hazard on the wing and maybe Luiz for Smalling, Willian for Rashford/Martil and Costa for Zlatan. That is all.Shaw hasn't had a top season in years yet he'd walk into our team? Nonsense. [Irrelevant point] is a very good player & although he lacks Shaw's athleticism he's far ahead of him technically & defensively. He was literally one of the best left backs in Serie A.
De Gea/Courtois would literally be a sideways step imo. They're both in the same tier. DDG wouldn't make a significant difference to our team. Zlatan on the other hand looks finished & has been a net negative over the past 5/6 games. The guy is completely static off the ball, I'd rather have Costa who has his fair share of frustrating moments but causes havoc with his finishing & movmenet.
Herrera & Martial. feck sakes lad.
Again the only players that would make our team are Pogba as a Matic replacement & Bailly for Cahill. Maybe De Gea for Courtois if you want to be pedantic. That's about it.
Your team is nowhere near as amazingly brilliant as you seem to think it is, really. Pretty much all across the pitch it is debatable who the better player is.
I like Valencia, good player and the only proper man we have at the club.
Hmm, interesting...what constitutes a 'proper man'.....just curious....
Someone with a bollocks.
ah...gotcha....
I like him too, don't get me wrong. Very likable player. But unfortunately for him it's not a popularity contest. He doesn't really have any vision, he can't dribble past his man most of the time and he can't put a decent cross to save his life.
I know, he plays as a defender so you may say that's too much to expect. However, he is not a traditional defender. He is fast, he's always overlapping and he always makes himself available on the wing. And the problem is that everytime he gets the ball it's either a blocked cross or a back pass.
Uhh Kante wouldn't crack the United lineup?
Why do we still waste so many posts debating about who is better than who?
I've said on another post, 'better' is nothing without context. Based on last season, Andros Townsend is a better footballer than Eden Hazard. Based on last season not one of those Chelsea players yesterday would have made a single top 8 side.
Football is about the collective. Hence why we have taken ADM, Pogba, Zlatan and more and made them look like pub players.
We need as a matter of urgency to stop f***ing about thinking a tweak here or a tweak there is going to make all the difference. Pick a system that suits our best footballers and play that team in that style week in week out until the results start to come
Honestly, when Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Leicester and Spurs line up you could predict exactly how they will play and who will play almost to a man. Can you say the same about us? We very rarely finish a half playing the way we started, let alone a game, let alone a few games in a row!!
I've said on another post, 'better' is nothing without context. Based on last season, Andros Townsend is a better footballer than Eden Hazard. Based on last season not one of those Chelsea players yesterday would have made a single top 8 side.
Football is about the collective. Hence why we have taken ADM, Pogba, Zlatan and more and made them look like pub players.
We need as a matter of urgency to stop f***ing about thinking a tweak here or a tweak there is going to make all the difference. Pick a system that suits our best footballers and play that team in that style week in week out until the results start to come
Honestly, when Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Leicester and Spurs line up you could predict exactly how they will play and who will play almost to a man. Can you say the same about us? We very rarely finish a half playing the way we started, let alone a game, let alone a few games in a row!!
In form he would. Which goes for majority of players in both teams.
Think you need to take red-tinted glasses off a second and actually look at it objectively. I'm not really talking about starting line ups, more quality of squad and options available, although of course starting line ups will reflect that.
Courtois/Begovic are probably better overall options than De Gea/Romero, although of course maybe De Gea just edges Courtois out as the best goalkeeper, but by a whisker. Remember only one of them has been nominated for the UEFA team of the year before, and it isn't De Gea.
In the full back positions Valencia is the best crosser but so much better than Azpilicueta to make up for the fact he has nothing on him defensively, out of the left backs Alonso has the crossing ability of Blind and is the most solid defensively although not as energetic as Shaw (when in-form), and is more natural there than Rojo and Blind, whilst at centre back John Terry is one of the Premier League's best ever centre backs, Zouma is about equal with Bailly, Luiz is a £50m Brazil international, Cahill keeps Smalling out of the England team. On our side Jones is Jones.
In central midfield we have Schneiderlin, 35 year old Carrick, Fellaini, Herrera and Pogba, the first three really not having proven they can even hack it at international level of late and Herrera who is a typical good but not great Bilbao player, in comparison to Kante (number one reason Leicester won the Premier League title), Matic (their best midfielder), Fabregas (105 caps for Spain, 96 for Barcelona), all players either wanted by the big two in Spain or have played for them.
Attacking midfield wise, they have two serial Brazil internationals, Hazard (don't need to justify him do I?), Pedro (204 appearances for Barcelona), even the likes of Cuadrado that they don't need we wanted at one point for big money, in comparison we have Young, Depay, Mata (good but slow), Martial and Rashford who are natural strikers, then Rooney. Mkhitaryan is great but at the moment that's a moot point.
Costa is better than Ibrahimovic, faster, more dynamic, better at finishing.
The key difference between us is where they are stronger we really do have a few stinker players, but where we are stronger there's really not that much difference between us.
I've calmed down a bit since the game and I don't think things are as bad now as I did then. Realistically it was always fairly likely that we would lose to Chelsea, these aren't the points we expect to pick up. The match was horrendous, but I think it was probably a bit of a one off. Chelsea had a massive point to prove and I think both their first two goals were very lucky.
A lot of our players need to do a lot better, that's for sure, but points wise we're still not doing terribly. It's extremely important that we now win the next two games against Burnley and Swansea, which we should be more than capable of doing. We can't afford to slip against teams like this, and losing to either one would be much worse than this loss to Chelsea
A lot of our players need to do a lot better, that's for sure, but points wise we're still not doing terribly. It's extremely important that we now win the next two games against Burnley and Swansea, which we should be more than capable of doing. We can't afford to slip against teams like this, and losing to either one would be much worse than this loss to Chelsea
It's more of you needing to take the blue-tinted specs off, you are dismissing Pogba because he's been average for a month and the mentioning Fabregas who has been mostly poor for years and raving about Terry who has not been very good for years too, praising Luiz for being a £50m player. What a load of nonsense. You even went on to praise a player who is not even their player anymore (Cuadrado).
Mata good but slow, I mean how can you possibly be so biased against one team and so in love with a team that is honestly not so great
BTW if I were to rate your Chelsea team in similar manner then:
Courtois - good but not great goalkeeper, overrated
Luiz - at the receiving end of a 7-1 Germany defeat, laughable
Cahill - part of England squad that is very poor and lost to Iceland
Terry - very old and not good for years
Alonso - still unproven, used to play for Bolton
Cesar - good but not great
Fabregas - Barca wanted to get rid, not been good for a long time
Matic - poor, already sold once
Kante - was playing in Ligue 1 not long ago
Hazard - was shit last season
Willian, Oscar - part of the worst Brazil team in years
Costa - mental
I actually said Pogba would get into a team composed of both sets of players. Ctl + f on the previous pageIt's more of you needing to take the blue-tinted specs off, you are dismissing Pogba because he's been average for a month and the mentioning Fabregas who has been mostly poor for years and raving about Terry who has not been very good for years too, praising Luiz for being a £50m player. What a load of nonsense. You even went on to praise a player who is not even their player anymore (Cuadrado).
Mata good but slow, I mean how can you possibly be so biased against one team and so in love with a team that is honestly not so great
The team we had to play yesterday are an evolved version of the team that walked the league in 2014-2015. They are good. I don't support them.
Don't think a single Chelsea fan would have any of Herrera, Martial, Valencia, or Shaw over the players we currently have in our XI. Zlatan either as Costa is the best pure #9 in the league right now. Bailly is super raw and rash so would probably be disastrous next to Luiz so I'm not sure I'd have him. De Gea and Courtois is a toss up when both are in good form (which Thibaut is now).
Think an in-form Pogba is the only United player I'd put straight in our XI no questions asked. At this exact point in time, though, Matic is much better in the CM than Pogba is.
That's all fine, I would not have any of your players bar Hazard and maybe Willian or Matic/Kante in our first team.
Why is Valencia a RB? What is Fellaini supposed to do stood out on the right? Why is Pogba playing as a defensive midfielder half the time? Herrera is a decent cm but nothing more. Lingard too is decent at best. Zlatan is all alone. Why does Mata have to defend as a right winger when he's clearly a nr.10? Rashford as a winger? Martial benched?
I think this article sums up my feelings very good.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football...anchester-united-were-torn-apart-so-easily-b/
I think this article sums up my feelings very good.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football...anchester-united-were-torn-apart-so-easily-b/
It's swings and roundabouts. Chelsea fans would only want a couple of our players, and United fans would only want a couple of theirs. It's not the individual players that seperate how good each team has been, it's the managers and the teams tactical system.
Your best XI is filled with players playing out of position. Kante and Matic would walk into your current team along with Hazard of course. Azpi is the best defensive fullback in the league and Mou loved him. He'd get in your team comfortably. Willian was also a José favorite and is a work horse that would probably start for you.
Uncontrolable things
Things that Jose needs to change and is in his hands.
Things to look forward to:
Jose has only had 9 games with a surplus of players (many average or not good enough) and a terrible pre-season to fit them all in and give them a run of games for fitness and also trying to get results at the same time.
Things will normalise between 10-15 games (as I have said before). Then we will know what kind of season we can expect.
- 3rd Game in a week
- an away game at our worst away ground
- a freak goal after 30 seconds
- Deflected cross for the 2nd goal
- David Louise not being sent of for that horrendous challenge on Fellaini
Things that Jose needs to change and is in his hands.
- Smalling is a disaster waiting to happen (actually he is a disaster that has already happened on multiple occasions)
- Rojo is a sack of shite
- Like I said before Having Smalling and Rojo in your back four is tantamount to match fixing.
- Fellaini looked ok against relegation fodder but gets overrun against any team with a midfield that has a smidgen of intelligence they just play around him.
- Rashford needs to play just ahead of Ibra to take advantage of hold up and link play
- The lack of effort and standing off by too many players
Things to look forward to:
- Mkhitaryan getting minutes (Bundesliga player of the year will literately be like a new signing)
- Pogba playing with a better Midfield counter balance (carrick, Blind or another signing in January)
- beating City in the ELC
- Mata is consistently on form
Jose has only had 9 games with a surplus of players (many average or not good enough) and a terrible pre-season to fit them all in and give them a run of games for fitness and also trying to get results at the same time.
Things will normalise between 10-15 games (as I have said before). Then we will know what kind of season we can expect.
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Good post from our resident Eye in the sky.
Thanks!
I am hopping that Jose gets passed giving chances to the fringe players now as I think he has promised that he would give everyone chances to keep the dressing room happy. I think he has reached the point where he can fairly decided who stays and who goes. Now is the time for him to get a solid core of players that he sticks with. We have had so many changes and tinkering because of the amount of choices/combination we have (quality level aside). We need a stable squad and building synergy between the players can only happen when they know who they are playing with week in week out and are comfortable (its just human nature). It is so important that each individual player can play their natural game with instinct without wasting valuable milliseconds adjusting or thinking too much because either they or their colleagues have occupied the wrong position or have taken too many touches or have not anticipated offensive or defensive movement. These little things in my opinion give you the edge against mediocre players and cumulatively make the difference in matches.
Mkhitaryan will IMO be better than Willian when he settles. I prefer Pogba to all your midfielders and am completely fine with Herrera. Hazard would get in easily and Azpi is a good player but I like Valencia this season.
Man of the Match
Runners-up
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25%
Ander Herrera
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7%
Juan Mata
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6%
Eric Bailly
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4%
Marcus Rashford
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3%
David de Gea
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3%
Chris Smalling
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2%
Marcos Rojo
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2%
Jesse Lingard
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1%
Anthony Martial
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1%
Marouane Fellaini
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1%
Paul Pogba
Player Ratings
Total Average Rating
Highest Rated Player
Lowest Rated Player
Compiled from 513 ratings.
Score Predictions
324,75,223
- Man Utd win
- Chelsea win
- Draw
Detailed Results
- 23% Chelsea 1:1 Man Utd
- 21% Chelsea 1:2 Man Utd
- 16% Chelsea 0:1 Man Utd
- 9% Chelsea 0:0 Man Utd
- 6% Chelsea 0:2 Man Utd
- 5% Chelsea 2:1 Man Utd
- 4% Chelsea 1:3 Man Utd
- 3% Chelsea 2:2 Man Utd
- 2% Chelsea 2:0 Man Utd
- 2% Chelsea 1:0 Man Utd
- 2% Chelsea 0:3 Man Utd
- 1% Chelsea 0:5 Man Utd
- 1% Chelsea 3:1 Man Utd
- 1% Chelsea 2:3 Man Utd
- 1% Chelsea 5:0 Man Utd
- 1% Chelsea 3:0 Man Utd
- 0% Chelsea 0:4 Man Utd
- 0% Chelsea 4:0 Man Utd
- 0% Chelsea 4:1 Man Utd
- 0% Chelsea 4:5 Man Utd
Match Stats
- Chelsea
- Man Utd
- Possession
- 44% 56%
- Shots
- 14 16
- Shots on Target
- 6 5
- Corners
- 5 7
- Fouls
- 7 17
Referee
Martin Atkinson
Man Utd Lineup
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replaced by Marcos Rojo
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-
-
-
-
replaced by Anthony Martial
-
-
replaced by Juan Mata
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